http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
LOOKING BACK on the last hundred years, what is the single most
significant change in the way that ordinary people live their lives?

To answer that question, you need look no further than the television
set in your living room. Over the course of a lifetime, an average
American will spend more time watching that TV than in any other waking
hour activity-giving top priority in his brief span on this planet to a
diversion that didn't exist even 100 years ago. Today, our obsession
with mass media begins in infancy - some 20 years before full-time work
usually commences-and continues in retirement years, long after
employment has ceased. A normal American spends more time in the course
of a life watching the tube than in working at all the jobs he has ever
held, combined.

This radical change in everyday reality has shaped some of the most
powerful forces of this century-so that the best designation for the last
hundred years might be the Media Century. Motion pictures arrived at the
very beginning of this era, and with the advent of radio less than twenty
years later, and television at mid-century, the ceaselessly expanding
entertainment industry penetrated every home. Now these distinctive 20th
century technologies seem poised to give way to new, more interactive
(and potentially isolating) means of amusement delivered by computers.

The media century began by breaking barriers, but ironically it has
concluded my making them.

In the first half of the 1900's, mass media-primarily movies and radio
- played a powerful role in bringing people together from every social
class and every corner of the globe, creating history's first truly
universal culture. Charlie Chaplin won recognition and affection
everywhere-in part because the silent, purely visual nature of early
films transcended all language barriers. An impoverished immigrant
street sweeper and a captain of industry might have nothing else in
common, but could well share a passionate admiration for Rudolph
Valentino and Mary Pickford.

Halfway through the twentieth century, however, significant
alterations in the delivery of popular culture tempered its unifying
impact and began to exert an opposite, polarizing influence. Most
importantly, television replaced movies as the dominant form of popular
entertainment: instead of bringing people together for public experiences
at motion picture palaces, the new medium kept people at home, transfixed
in their own living rooms.

In order to compete with the tube, movies
tried to offer an "edge" that TV couldn't provide, and in the mid -'60's
began emphasizing more violent, sexual, and risky material. In 1965, the
Academy Award for Best Picture went to the mass audience crowd-pleaser
"The Sound of Music"; a mere four years later, that Oscar went to the
X-rated "Midnight Cowboy." Instead of uniting Americans of all ages and
income groups, Hollywood increasingly cultivated a younger, hipper
audience-leaving many potential patrons feeling angry and alienated.

Finally in the '80's came the fragmentation of the television
audience, with the all-powerful networks challenged by countless cable
alternatives. In place of "broadcasting," today's industry focuses on
"narrow casting"-reaching for a specialized niche audience. In days gone
by, workplace colleagues could gather by the water cooler to discuss a
universally viewed episode of "I Love Lucy." But today, fans of
"Felicity" may hardly speak the same language as the audience for
"Touched by An Angel."

Instead of promoting a sense of community, no matter how superficial,
mass media at century's end help to generate the isolation and loneliness
that afflict so many Americans. With computers promising new, even more
individualized means of delivering home entertainment this process gives
every promise of intensifying. Even with unprecedented interactivity,
images on a screen provide only a feeble substitute for face to face
communication.

Remember that the average individual now devotes 28 hours a week to a
diversion (television) utterly unknown a century ago, but the decline in
work hours hasn't been nearly enough to make that time available. Even if
we accept the optimistic notion that the typical work week has gone down
ten hours in a hundred years, how do we make room for the balance of the
new 18 hours (and often much more) we spend on the tube, videos, and
movies?

That time comes from relationships-with family members, friends and
neighbors. As we move into new media of entertainment and spend added
chunks of life on the Internet, those old-fashioned human connections
occupy an even lower priority. Consider that a typical citizen works
eight hours each workday, sleeps eight hours each night, and watches
television four hours daily. This leaves a grand total of only four hours
for every other endeavor-including commuting, eating, exercising, house
cleaning, community groups and all private relationships.

The once-unifying force of popular entertainment already seems to fray
our sense of wholeness and belonging, as well as our links with those who
should count most for us, and the shape of the immediate future suggests
that the situation may only get worse.

In response, it makes little sense to decry technologies, new or
old---entertainment innovations will march relentlessly forward whether
we welcome them or not.

The deeper need is to place those changes in a
more mature and responsible context. Just because video games offer new
realism and thrills, or digital TV provides a far more dazzling
reproduction of reality, doesn't mean that we must invest more time
savoring these technical triumphs. All the new choices in mass media
should encourage us to consider the most important choice of all-to turn
back to face-to-face interpersonal interaction and to limit the time we
give to electronic substitutes.

In the new millenium the big question
will be whether we own and control the media of entertainment, or whether
we allow those media to own and control
us.

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